decription: weather

Felicia Culpepper

ENGL 0920-01I /2I

Thomas Reynolds

DATE \ "d MMMM yyyy " 8 November 2007

Living Through the Force of a Tornado 's Fury

Tornados are a weather phenomenon that adversely affect the geographical areas in which they blow through and touch down . The dictionary of a tornado involves a violent , destructive , whirling wind accompanied by a funnel-shaped cloud . Living in Shreveport , Louisiana tornados are one of the usual dangers that residents face , particularly from the last weeks of spring through the early fall months when tornado activity is

at its peak . Still , being forewarned of the danger does little to mask the terror and anxiety one feels when a swirling mass of darkness spirals through the neighborhood . I am a single mother who once found herself caught in the path of a tornado . Not only was it a particularly scary experience from a physical and emotional standpoint but it provided a sense of guilty relief when I witnessed the devastating aftereffects and realized the storm had not penetrated my own home

It was a day early in the fall when the weather forecaster interrupted the radio transmission in my car to inform listeners of an approaching storm as a result of Hurricane Lili coming to shore to the southeast of us . One glance out the bug-splattered windshield confirmed the presence of a bank of dark bluish-gray clouds close to the horizon with a clearly visible plume of updraft rising from its far eastern perimeter . I hurried to pick up my daughter from day care . Outside of my car , it was eerily quiet - I am sure this is what meteorologists refer to as the calm before the storm ' - with a feel of dense humidity in the air and the crackle of electric currents humming through . The birds had quit singing and the streets were nearly deserted . I shuddered involuntarily as I strapped my daughter into her car seat and felt a prickle of goose bumps form along my arms

It did not take long for the storm to gain momentum . The bank of clouds which had been perched just above land now swelled upward and overtook the sky , turning it from its familiar deep blue to a desolate gray and black . The clouds began to swirl while the wind whipped and battered the exterior of my house . The windows rattled in their frames as huge drops of icy rain pelted against the glass . A row of elm trees in the back yard were flattened nearly horizontal with the force of the wind . It was then that the infamous funnel shape appeared , swirling down out of the blackness of the clouds and narrowing to a dizzyingly fast yo-yo point on the ground

It was at this point that I headed down to the hallway in the center of the house with my daughter . I covered her little body with mine and crouched there with trepidation and rough carpet fibers digging deep into my knees . There was sound now , waves...